When Harm Met Sarah
by cardsfn1977
Summary: A couple weeks after the second installment of a sci-fi saga, a young man and woman meet for the first time. Differing backgrounds and deep hurts cloud their pasts. Will they be able to get past that and on with their lives? Only time will tell. T rating with possible M in the future. Pairings to come... maybe! Hurt / comfort, friendship, romance.


Just an idea I had about Harm and Mac if they had met as kids. It's a couple of weeks after the premiere of the second installment of a sci-fi saga that was taking the country by Stormtrooper. ;-)

June 3, 1980

1835 Pacific Daylight Time

Loma Theatre

San Diego, California

" _C'mon dude! I've seen it like five times! Is freaking awesome! You have got to see it. Don't be such a square!"_

"Don't be such a square"? Did his best friend actually say that to him?

It was the summer between his junior and senior year. Harmon Rabb, Jr. was seventeen and had just been suckered into going with his friends to go see the new 'Star Wars' movie that had just come out a couple of weeks earlier. His best friend, Jeff Sanders, had called to see if he could meet their little group for the movie. Initially, Harm had declined saying that he wasn't up to going when Jeff called him a 'square'. Knowing he wouldn't live that down by not going, Harm relented and accepted the invitation.

Now waiting in line to buy his ticket alongside his friends, Harm was determined to at least attempt to enjoy himself.

The last five years had been hard for the teen. With his father missing in action after his ill-fated final flight in Vietnam on Christmas Eve, 1969 and for the next seven years, Harm's mother had Harm, Sr. declared legally dead. A year later, Patricia Rabb married Frank Burnett and the small family moved to La Jolla, California. Harm had become obsessed with find his father. When he was fourteen, he had heard of a man who was still in country looking for MIAs. Harm was determined that he go to Vietnam, find this man, and together find his father and bring him home, no matter the cost. He had saved up for the trip for two years.

When he was finally ready to go, he grabbed his savings and some more cash that he had _borrowed_ from Frank and made his way to southeast Asia. What he experienced had changed him in immense and innumerable ways. When he made it back, his mother had punished him by making him spend one half of the summer helping her at her gallery and then the other half by sending him to his grandmother's place in eastern Pennsylvania to work off what he had taken from Frank.

With only a couple more people ahead of him in line, Harm decided to pull his wallet out from his back pocket. As he did, out of the corner of his eye, he spotted a girl who couldn't have been more that two or three years younger than him. She had long, wavey brown, almost auburn, hair that came down to about the middle of her back. It seemed to shimmer in the early evening summer sun. Her eyes were the color of rich milk chocolate. They seemed to be able to look into his very soul if she dared look in his direction.

"How many," the man in the box office asked, snapping Harm from his mental ministrations.

Momentarily shocked that he was now the first person in line, he would never understand what possessed him to do what he did next. "I'll take four tickets for 'Star Wars', please."

"Dude, I can get my own ticket," Jeff said indignantly. It was too late. Harm had paid for the tickets and received his change. "What are you doing?"

"Uh... oh... um, I'm sorry, Jeff. I... uh... have no idea why I did that," was Harm's ever so eloquent reply. Taking another look at the girl, Harm formulated a quick plan. "Hey, man... go with me on this for a minute. I have an idea."

Summoning up all his courage, Harm walked back to the young lady who was engrossed in conversation with another girl who looked to be about the same age.

The friend noticed a young man making his way to the two of them, nudged the young lady, and whispered, "Don't look, but there is a hunky guy looking at you and walking towards us."

The young lady nodded in response and waited for said hunk to make the first move.

Harm tapped her on the shoulder saying, "Excuse me, miss?"

She turned around to acknowledge him. When she looked up into his eyes, everything around her seemed to stop. The cars on the street that were passing by faded and all but disappeared in a ghostly haze. Even her friend and the young man with the person who tapped her on her should faded away along with the buildings and the other people in line. It was as if time itself had stopped. Nothing else existed but her and him.

Harm experienced something similar when their eyes met. It was as if a cloud had descended and the young woman in front of him began to glow. His heart was beating out of his chest and his breath had caught in his throat. He was drowning in her brown pools and the only escape was to sink farther down. He would die a happy man if this was the last thing that had ever happened to him.

Oblivious to his friend's thoughts, Jeff felt the need to _help_ Harm. Jeff cleared his throat and said, "Um, sorry to interrupt you two, but we were wondering if you would like to join us..." He paused momentarily to nudge Harm back into the world of the living before he continued, "Right, Harm?"

Mentally shaking the fog from his mind, Harm gathered himself. Mustering his best smile, he answered, "Buh... uh, yeah. I... I'm sorry. I... uh... yeah. Would you like to join us?"

When he smiled, the young lady's body seemed to instantly petrify. How could one smile make all bodily function cease?

Noticing that her friend wasn't responding, the other girl spoke up nearly startling her friend in the process, "We'd love to. Right, Sarah?"

Sarah could only give a nod as her answer.

Finally, able to make his tongue move more fluidly, Harm introduced himself as he held out his hand, "Hi. I'm Harmon Rabb. My friends call me 'Harm'. What's yours?"

Sarah took the proffered hand tentatively, still unsure of how to proceed with him. Her friend took up the mantel and responded, "Hi. My name's Amira but I go by Ami [Amy]. This lady here is Sarah Mackenzie, my cousin. Where are you guys from?"

' _Ugh, Ami?! What are you doing?! Somebody shoot me now...PLEASE! This is the last thing I wanted to happen. Why can't my life just go a LITTLE bit easier? All I wanted was to get away from Yuma for a day without any complications,'_ Sarah thought. For her it had been a really rough three weeks. Her father's drinking had taken on an all new high with his being kicked out of the Marines for said drunkenness. She wished that they had thrown him in jail, but he copped to the charges and was granted his release without benefits. Her mom was just barely holding on by a thread even without the scandal. She just wanted to come visit her mom's family and forget her life back home. Was that too much to ask? Now, throw in these two yahoos and what do you have? _'Oh, the hell with it. Maybe it won't be so bad to talk with these two. There's something about the taller one, though. My God is he cute, though. That smile. I hope I don't do or say anything too dumb. Okay, just play it cool and maybe you won't come out looking like an idiot.'_

Jeff answered Ami, "Well, I'm from here in San Diego. Harm, here, is from La Jolla. How about you two?"

Sarah finally finds her voice and responded, "Ami and her family live in National City and I live in Yuma, Arizona with my folks." Again, she's unsure of herself and it begins to show on her face. Her lips pursed into a thin line and her eyes started to turn down slightly.

This was noticed by Harm, who wasn't quite sure how to deal with her. There was just something about her that he just couldn't place. The way she looked drew him in. Love at first sight was a foreign concept to him. Infatuation wasn't too far out of the question, but he had just met Sarah Mackenzie. It was a little too early for something of that nature. This quiet girl... nay, young woman was intriguing to him and he wanted to get to know her. Somehow, he didn't think that going to a movie was going to afford him the opportunity to do that. Then an idea came to him.

"Sarah..." She looked up at him and met him eye to eye. "... if it's alright with you, would you like to go get a soda or something? I don't feel like seeing the movie all of a sudden."

Wham! Straight out of left field, the question caught her off guard. She had gone out today with Ami with the intention of trying to have a good time and the movie would have been a way to accomplish that. She didn't expect to meet Harm and Jeff, let alone see the movie _with_ them. The more she looked into his eyes, the more she found that she was beginning to like him. She couldn't explain why, she just was. Harm did seem genuine in his request, though. What hurt could a little soda do? She decided to take the plunge.

"Um, sure."

"Cool. Hey Jeff, I'm sorry buddy, but can you give our tickets to someone else or get a refund? You can use it for your snacks. I just don't feel like seeing the movie. Tell the guys I'll see them later," Harm said.

Being the teenage boy he was, Jeff looked from Harm to Sarah and back again and immediately drew an unflattering conclusion; one that he would ask Harm about later. He shrugged his shoulders and mused, "Hey that's fine. Just means that I get to save my money since you already bought my ticket. Thanks, Dude."

Ami understood her cousin all too well and the situation she was in back in Yuma. She realized that maybe Sarah just wanted an outsider's opinion or maybe she wanted to just talk to the cutie with the most gorgeous pair of blue eyes Ami had seen since John Schneider on _The Dukes of Hazzard_. She trusted her cousin to make rational decisions and believed that she would be safe. So, she chose to go in with Jeff to see the movie.

Five minutes later found Harm and Sarah sitting in a booth at a nearby diner across from each other. Harm had ordered a Coke for each of them having received her okay to do so. Now they were sitting in an uncomfortable silence just waiting for the other to start the conversation; neither wanting to be the one to begin.

It was when Sarah looked up into his eyes and saw him looking back into hers that she decided to open up. "Uh, so, uh, Harm… um, are you in high school?"

Harm shifted slightly nervous in his side if the booth, his eyes never leaving hers. After a few awkward seconds, he finally answered, "Uh, yeah. I'm going to be a senior at La Jolla High. How about you? Where do you go?"

"Well, I'm going to be a freshman at Yuma High in Yuma, Arizona. I just finished at Gila Vista Junior High this past week. Do you know where you want to go after you graduate?" Ok, at least they were talking. She still wasn't sure about the young man across the table from her. Who was he and what was he like? Hopefully she could get one of those questions answered while her cousin was in the movie.

Harm cleared his throat and prayed that we would make it through his answer. He was still reeling from his journey to southeast Asia last year and what he found, or rather _who_ he _didn't_ find. "Well, I'm going to apply to the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, that is once I can convince my mom to sign the papers. My dad, he… he went… d… down…" His voice talked off at the idea of losing his father. "… he went down in Vietnam, 1969. I want to be an aviator… like him." For him, nothing more needed to be said as tears streamed down his face.

Sarah's heart broke for him. Hesitating slightly, she made her way to his side of the booth and began to run one hand up and down his back as the other gently held his bicep reassuringly as Harm sobbed in silence. "It's okay, Harm. Shhh, it's okay. Cry it out," she murmured to him. She held him like this for a few minutes while the turmoil in Harm's heart and mind wracked his body.

When he was all but done crying, Harm finally had pulled his head up and off of Sarah's shoulder, where it had moved sometime in the last few minutes of his internal tirade. "Thank you, Sarah. I haven't been able to cry like that in… well… a really long time," Harm said weakly. "I'm sorry. I never thought that was going to be part of this conversation."

Sarah smiled at him sweetly before pulling away slowly and heading back to her side of the table. "You're welcome, Harm. I've needed to do that myself recently. It's always easier to do with somebody else with you. Anyway, I'm glad I could help."

Harm felt something he never had before in that moment. It was a feeling of warmth and caring for the young woman in front of him. In his three years of high school, Harm had a few girlfriends, never at the same time, and never felt for them what he was quickly beginning to feel for Sarah Mackenzie. She was a beautiful person inside and out. However, there was a darkness buried beneath the chocolate brown windows of her soul. For some reason, Harm knew that she had been hurt, and by somebody very close to her. Gathering up his strength he asked, "Sarah, what made you cry recently?"

All of a sudden, Sarah felt the need to run away. She didn't want anyone else, especially the young man across the table, to know her family secret. She didn't want Harm to know that she… that she… In a flash, Sarah jumped out of the booth and ran out of the diner; leaving a flabbergasted Harm in her wake.

' _What did I say,'_ Harm wondered. He got up, left enough money for the sodas and a tip, and ran out the door to try and catch up with her. One outside, Harm looked down the street both ways, but there was no sign of her. Harm made his way back to the theatre where his friends was waiting for him.

"Dude, what did you say to Sarah," Jeff asked. "She ran up to us crying, grabbed Ami's arm and ran away like a bat out of hell. What happened?"

Harm shook his head and answered, "I'm not sure. We talked about ourselves a bit. I told her about Dad and cried for him for the first time since I was a kid. She held me and said she's had to cry recently and that it was okay. Then I asked her why she had to cry and she just ran out. I have to find her Jeff. I have to."

Harm and Jeff searched for the girls for the next two hours without any luck.

Harm had lost her, forever it seemed. She had just come into his life and made it brighter than it had been in the ten plus years since Senior had gone down.

Now she had vanished…

… She was gone.

A/N: Halo everyone. Sorry it's been so long since you've heard from me. I haven't had much incentive to write the past few months. I had been out of work since we moved and only within the past month found gainful employment. Yippie! Loving the new job so far.

Anyway, I started this story a couple months ago and just wrote a paragraph or two. I thought that with _The Force Awakens_ coming out tomorrow, it would be nice to finally get this out.

Don't worry, _Russia_ and _How Could You_ will be continuing in 2016. Now that I'm working again, it'll be easier to get the creative juices flowing. Thanks for your patience.

I hope everyone has a blessed Christmas (or whatever you celebrate) and a safe and happy New Year.


End file.
